behind AotW

Hiram Durkee, a 21 year old farmer from Lorain County, OH was killed in the battle at Fox’s Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862. He was a Private in Lieutenant Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes’ 23rd Ohio Infantry.

This image of him is from a copy of an ambrotype he had taken at Judd C. Potter’s gallery in Elyria, OH just before he enlisted in May 1861. This copy, made by the family in 1863, was passed down through the generations and was kindly supplied by R.C. Durkee.

As I’ve done on my last several trips to the battlefield, I stopped to visit a few stones in Antietam National Cemetery this past week. Starting at the “back” – the south wall of the cemetery – I noticed particularly the rows of markers for the many unknown soldier buried there …

Dr. James Alfred Long returned to the practice of medicine in La Grange, GA after the war. He’d been at least briefly in command of his regiment, the 13th Georgia Infantry, at Sharpsburg in September 1862 while Captain of Company K.

This clip is from the front page of the La Grange Reporter of 22 December 1865, which is online thanks to the Digital Library of Georgia.